Seems Nick went into a Borders down in Georgia and was “embarrassed and disgusted” to find the African-American Literature section “overrun with novels that appeal to our most prurient natures.” Worse, the pity-pot was “ashamed and mortified to see [his] books sitting on the same shelves” with these “purveyors of crassness.”
This from a man who has co-written with his wife such high literary classics as What Brothers Think, What Sistahs Know About Sex: The Real Deal On Passion, Loving and Intimacy.
The new crop of crime stories shows that folk are reading and writing, that written words still have some life in them yet. For a writer, any writer, to bemoan a burst of books is downright shameful.
Sold first from inner-city sidewalks, outer-borough nightclubs and out of the trunks of cars, street lit has bootstrapped into a bonafide phenomenon. It’s called the free marketplace, Nick. Back in the ’80s the Port Authority book shop was the only place south of 125th St. to buy Iceberg Slim or Donald Goines; now anyone anywhere can nab the Godfathers, and their offspring as well.
Keisha Ervin (Chyna Black) was a teen mother, Ebony Stroman (The Game Chose Me) was orphaned with two younger sisters and Vickie Stringer (Let That Be the Reason) is an ex-con and ex-gang banger who ran whores. Now Ervin’s a minor bestseller with three books to her credit, Stroman and her husband have their own publishing house, and Stringer’s Triple Crown Publications (named for her old crew) boasts a stable of authors 12-strong and a sales record (a reported 300,000 sold during a recent 16-month period) that makes even the big boys blush.
Chiles claims all this action is “driving out serious writers.” Well, discounting the presumption that these bold new fictionists aren’t serious about their craft (Who’s being crass now, Nick?), we’ll grant that street lit is supplanting some so-called serious fiction at the top of the charts in Essence, but it’s not because “serious” work is selling less. It’s because the street is selling more.
Ellison never whined about Himes.
I’m not Black. But after 15 years of word-work, I do know that books need to be written, and they need to be read. And every bit of writing that gets people reading is a damn good thing.
Even, yes, the writing of ninny Nick Chiles.
